Summer
by ChronicallyinFlaming
Summary: On a hot day, Krillin reflects on the difference between what you wanted, and what you received.


**Summer **

Krillin watched Oolong take a few steps out of the porch door before uttering "Holy fuck" and retreating back indoors. The lifeless man listened to the steady thrum of a half-dozen fans inside. He himself had a fan pointing straight at his face, blowing his short hair away from his face and doing nothing else.

It was at least a hundred and ten degrees.

Even with the fans blowing.

The air conditioners had gone out, and fixing them required too much effort that could be better spent imagining snow. None of them could figure out how the damn thing worked anyway. Juuhachigou would get close, then she'd notice a pair of eyes focused on her bending down while she was attempted to solder a pipe. There was exactly two seconds of her pausing, then she turned around and started yelling, 'If they wanted their air conditioner fixed, they could just do it themselves'.

And no repairman would come out of the middle of the ocean for them. Dende knew, they‟d tried.

Even Krillin had given into despair and done little more than lay in a puddle of his own sweat and watch as the others bickered exhaustively.

Even Master Roshi and Oolong barely leered at Juuhachigou in her shorts and t-shirt.

Even Juuhachigou could barely do more than give a threatening look at them.

He cracked open a blurry eye as someone drew near to where he lay prostrate on the porch, arms outstretched as though asking for mercy from a watching voyeuristic god, or perhaps a hug. Instead, a toe pressed firmly into his shoulder. His eye fell closed again.

"I think it's hotter outside than in."

"Somehow."

"What we need," Krillin rested a damp hand on a wet palm, "is a distraction from all this heat."

Juuhachigou raised a perfect yellow eyebrow. If the weather had been ten degrees cooler, he would have flushed in embarrassment. Instead, he gave her a slightly irritated look. It was hard to find those teasing looks cute when you were _melting_.

"No Juuhachigou."

"Why not?"

"It's too hot."

"Still," she shrugged tiredly. "Still it would pass the time."

"Jeez, that makes me feel so good about myself."

"Oh, shut up."

"No, really, that helps my self-esteem a whole bunch."

"You know damn well what I meant."

"Yeah, it really makes me feel better when we're together, knowing the only reason why is because you want the time to pass. Do you look at the clock too?"

Within two seconds they were glaring at each other, and within another five they simply sighed and gave up. She leaned against the wall and he tried to remain breathing. Juuhachigou slid down until her legs were stretched out against his side. When Krillin pressed his cheek into her leg, they both winced from each other's body heat.

"Passing the time isn't the only reason I'm with you. In general, as well."

He kissed the inside of her thigh. Immediately, Juuhachigou started moving away, all too aware of the others inside. "So nice."

"Shut up. And knock that off."

"Mm."

"Swimming?"

"Too tired. Will drown."

"We could go..." She couldn't continue on. Her eyes were closed and he admired how perfect and vulnerable she looked like that. If she could read his thoughts, she would have thrown him out to the sea.

"We could," his voice cracked. "Go to Capsule Corp. Bet they have air conditioners there."

"I don't want to fly right now."

She moved the fan so it faced her.

When he'd been younger, he'd thought of love as some wonderful all-encompassing thing that would make all the bad things go away. It was the parent he'd never had to chase away the bogey men under his bed.

He knew better now.

His match he had always thought would be an exotic girl, maybe French or Belgium, and gentle and sweet. Tears and awe in dark eyes. "I love you so much…there‟s just no words. You're so amazing." Looking up at him with such respect and admiration, like he was a hero from a movie. He'd meet her in a perfectly ordinary, sane way that they could actually tell their children about at each anniversary. All of his friends would congratulate him, and get along with her smashingly. There would be pretty demure outfits and kind smiles whenever he did something foolish. "Oh, _Krillin_, you're so silly."

Certainly, there was no blonde woman in his fantasy life, let alone one that snored and hit him when he told her that she did so. No pale-eyed woman who yelled at him when they were out of milk, even though it was her fault since she hadn't let a note on the door to tell him to buy more. There was no laughter from her when he missed a step and fell down the stairs, no having to cover their key hole before they went to bed, and no arguments between his wife and his friends over whose husband was worse.

Thankfully, he lost that contest that never happened in fantasy land, and Krillin had never been so happy to fail. In fact, this odd woman who'd somehow stolen his heart while he in turn eventually he wormed his way into hers, seemed to preen over him when his friends complained about their spouses. Somehow, when it came to good husbands, _he'd_ been the arm candy. She would pat his head while drinking a wine cooler Bulma had provided. "_And _he takes me shopping whenever I want."

The first date with the woman he‟d thought he would end up with would be at a nice restaurant. They would bond over romantic comedies and their volunteer work. When he met her family, they immediately took him in as one of theirs.

When it came to wooing Juuhachigou, it had been a bizarre game of cat and mouse. Only somehow he'd become the cat unknowingly, over time. He might think that he'd see her from the corner of her eye, watching him, only to turn around or look up and find nothing. When Krillin officially saw her again, she yelled and insulted him for ten minutes before beating him up and leaving him with sand burying itself in his wounds. She came back the next day, insulted him some more, then helped put fresh bandages.

Waiting for her to come back every time, and understanding gradually in small flashes of insight that he had a strange quality that she somehow found attractive. That when he took his shirt off, she looked at him like he was meat and she was Goku, which horrified and thrilled him.

That slowly she warmed to him, laughing at his jokes and insulting him less, that her coldness hid a passion and a sadness and a fear. One day when watching a depressing foreign film about a war, Juuhachigou leaned too close to each other and he couldn't bring himself not to kiss her. She hadn't killed him, and since neither said anything out loud to each other about their relationship, Krillin guessed it had started there. Her clothes started taking up room in his dresser and closet, and she spent more time at the Kame House than anywhere else.

Eventually, he started telling her he loved her, and eventually she stopped flinching and panicking when he did so.

Then, a year later, the blonde woman had reached into her pocket and pulled, to his disbelief, a soft velvet box. Then her grabbing his hand and shoving a ring onto his finger. There was a tiny, dark blue stone in the center. Krillin had nearly started to laugh until he noticed the hard, scared look on her face.

"Juuhachigou." He brushed a few strands of hair out of her face. The short man looked deep into her eyes.

"You want to get married?" Krillin asked.

"Okay," she allowed. Her expression turned haughty.

"Okay, but shouldn't you be the one wearing the ring?"

"_I _proposed to _you_." There was a touch of pride in her voice. His modified "yes‟ had cheered her up. Krillin grinned, all of it hitting him. _We're going to get married. _

"Fine. But how about we share it?"

"No."

Then she walked away, leaving him to tell his friends and to plan the wedding entirely. There was no ridiculous pink cummerbund and matching tie. Juuhachigou's horrified expression when he stepped out of the dressing room put an end to any thoughts of soft pastels. His suit was white except for his black jacket, and her dress has no more ruffles on it than necessary.

Instead of a hug, a pat on the back, he got a sudden cold, hideous glare from his new brother-in-law. On his wedding day, just as he was about to kiss the bride. Later, holding his hands up, empty, while Krillin wandered over to him and hoped that Gohan wasn't too busy eating shrimp to help him. "My sister gets whatever she wants, so I won't murder you. So long as you make her happy."

Juuhachigou crept over, in a white laced dress. A fiendish smirk touched her mouth, not unlike the one her brother usually wore. "_Oh_, he does. Don't worry about that." Her fingers stroked her new husband's ear, while Juunanagou looked disgusted, then started to gag as he realized the implications. They'd hardly seen him since; and her twin did his best to avoid looking at her new husband.

In this fantasy life, they immediately had a couple of kids and a house in the suburbs with a white picket fence and a dog.

In reality, Juuhachigou was fine in theory with children (so long as he took care of diapers), but wanted just one. A well-behaved boy or girl that looked like him. They'd have dark-hair and eyes, and never, ever be stuck in any second of danger. There was no nice house in the country; they lived with Master Roshi in a tiny pink house in the middle of the ocean, and the closest thing they had to a dog was Oolong.

And most certainly, this unlikely woman would not make him as happy as she did. He had no idea that anyone could make him this happy.

The fan was blowing her hair back, and Krillin felt his eye twitch at her overenthusiastic sigh. He leaned forward, hands creeping out while she was distracted. When he grabbed the fan and attempted to point it at him, she immediately opened her eyes and moved it back. A split second passes before they're stuck fighting over it, and another passes before they're smiling even as she tries kneeing him in the stomach.

It occurred to him, while his wife's fingers jabbed into his side, that they didn't need to go anywhere to have fun. They could just sit here on this hot porch and bicker and fight over a fan, and that, that was alright with him. Just because Juuhachigou was here.

At a festival or amusement park or in a pool or traveling through time or space to fight some evil alternative version of themselves, it wouldn't matter. That was all window dressing. No matter how miserable they were, where they were, they were ultimately okay. Corny as it was, Krillin was okay with whatever happened, so long as she was with him. Snoring and all.

Love was being stuck in a tiny house with no air conditioner on the hottest day of the year, and not killing each other.

And Juuhachigou, after having wrestled the fan away, compromised by allowing him to rest his head on her lap while she turned the fan on them both.


End file.
